


Blueprints

by Silvereye



Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: Daniel Jacobi is not having a good time, Existential Angst, Gen, Post-Canon, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-16
Updated: 2019-06-16
Packaged: 2020-05-13 03:54:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,317
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19243306
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silvereye/pseuds/Silvereye
Summary: Lovelace finds Jacobi in the armory of the Urania, playing with a pistol. There's no other word for it.After the Brave New World, Jacobi has some doubts about himself. Lovelace attempts to put them to rest.





	Blueprints

Lovelace finds Jacobi in the armory of the Urania, playing with a pistol. There's no other word for it. He twirls the gun around one hand, unloads the magazine, twirls the gun again and reloads. There's a horrible grace to it, and a complete lack of discipline. Or perhaps not. On the fourth twirl it's clear the gun never points at the door or anything too explosive, and the only time Jacobi is staring into the barrel is while the magazine is detached.

"Jacobi," Lovelace says.

"Captain," he answers, like nothing is wrong at all.

"Care to tell me what you're doing?"

He shrugs and keeps twirling.

Lovelace floats in the doorway for half a minute and then goes to sit by Jacobi. His hands move infinitesimally, just enough to keep the gun from ever pointing at her.

The safety is on. Lovelace takes a breath and lets it go. She's not too good at supportive and Jacobi is worse at being comforted.

"How's Minkowski?" Jacobi asks.

"Better. Still sleeping."

Jacobi nods. They sit together in silence, shoulders not quite touching. The armory is the quietest room on the Urania. It's well insulated from the rest of the ship and the ventilation here is near soundless. It even smells different, like metal and faintest hints of chemicals instead of the scrubbed and reused spaceship air. Hera is keeping an eye on them, because she can't not, but she's saying nothing and that makes it possible to pretend there's no one else here other than Jacobi and Lovelace herself.

After a few minutes Jacobi says: "I'm very good at things that break other things."

"I know," Lovelace says, drily.

"I need intel, though. Give me the blueprints and I could blow out the one wire that keeps the light on in Pryce's bathroom." He laughs, sharp like a gunshot. "Shit example. I could do that without the prints."

"Gonna go bully the amnesiac?"

"Nah."

He clicks the magazine back into the pistol and rests the gun on his thigh, finger on the trigger guard.

Lovelace glances at his hands, nakedly. Jacobi has not switched off the safety. He glances back, as nakedly, and he's as afraid as she's ever seen him.

"I had no blueprints for where Riemann would stand after beating me up. I could protect the rest of the Hephaestus, so I directed the blast inward." His voice is strange, stressed all wrong. After a moment Lovelace realizes whose cadences these are. She wonders whether Jacobi is doing it consciously, speaking like Kepler because for all his innumerable faults Kepler always managed to pretend to be in control.

"Heroic sacrifice?" she asks.

"I'm SI-5. We don't do heroic."

"Oh, I'm sorry. So just a sacrifice, for all the rest of us."

He shrugs again and his voice is more his own when he says: "I had to be sure."

"But you got lucky," she says.

"Did I?" he asks.

Lovelace remembers waking up in the infirmary, seeing Jacobi bent over Minkowski, suturing her stomach wound. He was - Lovelace wants to say bloody to the elbows, but the truth is he was bloody all over, bruises blooming underneath, and Lovelace was sure not all of it was Minkowski's blood. Riemann really did a number on him.

Few burns, though. No shrapnel at all. She wonders at it sometimes. Of course, if anyone on the Hephaestus could dodge an explosion it's him.

She sighs. "You were there when I was resurrecting. Tell me, Jacobi, how long did that take? That's right, long enough that we would all be a smear of carbon somewhere on the surface of the star if you had undergone it. You got us out, which, thanks again, o our personal lord and savior."

Jacobi smiles for a second. Then he says: "You were killed by being shot in the head. I took an explosion in the chest. Not meant to kill by brain injury, so no disk defragging needed."

"Next point: my brain broke Pryce's machine. It took a transfusion of my blood to get you back. If you were a Dear Listener copy you would have been immune to her, too."

"Only proves that the aliens installed the nice antivirus for you, but not me, if I am one."

"Okay," Lovelace says. "So? You're still Daniel Jacobi, copy or not."

Jacobi breathes in and out. "Remember the USS Tiamat?"

Lovelace nods.

"Zhang destroyed the ship to keep them from getting to Earth."

That might be true. Lovelace keeps remembering those fragments at odd times, wondering who it was who slagged the ship at the end. Commander Zhang had the codes, but she had been so sure someone was sabotaging them, be it the aliens themselves or someone on her crew. All to keep the copies from getting to Earth. Or so Zhang had said. There will never be an answer, this late and that far away.

"Well," Lovelace says, "you haven't shot _me_ yet."

He looks down, unloads the gun, loads it again. "You have enough weird superhuman traits to give you away. I'm not immune to puppet mode, psi waves don't fuck me up and my blood doesn't cause miracles. If one of us is a sleeper agent I'm voting for Daniel K. Jacobi."

"So, what, you gonna launch yourself into space?"

"Ha, funny," Jacobi says and waves a careless hand when Lovelace starts to apologize. "Don't. I don't know. Maybe I should."

"So far you haven't said anything beyond what-if maybe bullshit."

"Which is why I have this gun," Jacobi says.

"And if you're not a copy I get to clean off my friend's brains from this nice wall, knowing he isn't going to come back."

"A friend," Jacobi repeats, careful.

"Don't be dense."

"I'm not. I'm a nice asset to have when you're up against Pryce and Cutter on a space station. Back on Earth I am a killer, not much more, not much less. I make things explode for fun and profit. How long do you think you all want me around?"

Lovelace has tried to not think about Earth. Not because of Jacobi specifically. Back on Earth Minkowski has a husband and Eiffel has a family, probably, and Goddard will certainly find someone for Pryce. Lovelace doesn't have anyone or anything waiting for her, other than a desire to see Goddard Futuristics burn.

"Yeah, well, doesn't make shooting yourself now a good idea."

Jacobi says nothing.

"And we're far enough from Wolf 359 that you might not come back even if you are a copy. You staying dead only proves you killed yourself."

"Worth the risk if I am a sleeper agent."

"And a shit choice if you're not."

He exhales. "So I just pretend to be Daniel Jacobi and hope for the best?"

"Works for me."

Jacobi considers it for a long while. Lovelace looks at him, at his scar-stippled hands, incongruous little glasses, long lashes behind them, the absolute certainty with which he's holding the gun. She thinks he looks young. She thinks at this moment Jacobi must feel like she does sometimes, like he's a million years old and too tired of everything, but giving up is not an option.

Jacobi unloads the pistol, gets to his feet and stashes both the gun and the ammo in their separate lockers. He floats back to Lovelace. "Okay. Let's go." The change in his manner is palpable.

"That simple?" Lovelace asks, getting up.

"Compartmentalization," he says, easy. "Can't be an SI-5 agent without it."

"Really," she says.

"Yeah." He stops in the doorway and looks back at her, smiles. It's fragile at edges, less mocking than his usual, so probably more sincere. "Thanks, though."

"Yeah," she says. "By the way, did you ever find Kepler's extra booze? I think we both could use it it right now."

"No. But I do know where Alana's is. Let's go."


End file.
